LOWESTOFT travelled to Dagenham Saturday looking for a first away victory of the season and they managed this against a battling Dagenham side who never gave up.

LOWESTOFT travelled to Dagenham Saturday looking for a first away victory of the season and they managed this against a battling Dagenham side who never gave up.

After last week's fantastic result against second placed Canvey Island, Lowestoft were confident and this showed from the kick off. L&Y were rewarded a penalty in front of the sticks with only three minutes gone and Lewis Davey stepped up to put them ahead. Again almost immediately from the restart L&Y took control and a neat box kick from scrum half Tom Castleton took the ball deep into Dagenham's 22. Simon Coleman then stole Dagenham's lineout ball and the drive was on, with Marc Thomas on hand for the first of his hat trick of tries making it 0-8.

After another good passage of play and some thundering runs from Jake Titterington and Russell Wilkinson, fly half Scott Nelson sold the dummy and broke through. A last gasp tackle by the full back nearly halted the try but Nelson offloaded to the supporting Graeme Newton who crashed over the line wide on the left.

Lowestoft kept on pressuring for another score but Dagenham held on for the half time whistle as it remained 0-13.

Only one change was made at half time bringing on young Jan Sheijde for the hard working Steve Powles in the back row. Lowestoft were feeling confident with a slight slope and wind at their backs but from the kick off L&Y found themselves under pressure and Dagenham were not going down without a fight after some poor first up tackling Lowestoft conceded a try under the post, which was converted 7-13.

From the restart Dagenham lifted a gear and from a long clearance kick from Nelson, Dagenham's full back offloaded to the speedy number 11 who evaded four would be tacklers and sprinted in from 60 metres the conversion was good and Lowestoft found themselves trailing 14-13.

As has been the case all season L&Y seemed to switch off for 10 minutes and this allowed Dagenham to record their last points of the game from some more sloppy defending they managed to break through and score, with the conversion added.

After some rallying words from captain Marc Thomas, Lowestoft started to play the rugby that has brought them success recently. They were making the ball do the work and relying on the catch and drive from Simon Coleman and Ryan Oakes and it was from a lineout that L&Y got back into the game as Coleman took a lovely catch and was driven to within inches of the line.

As Dagenham brought the maul down Jan Shiejde was on hand to crash over to bring the score to 21-18. With 20 minutes to play L&Y started to find rhythm and were soon on the scoresheet again. From a five metre scrum they decided to drive Dagenham over the line and Thomas was on hand to touch down.

Lewis Davey made the conversion to put Lowestoft ahead 21-25. With the clock ticking away Dagenham were trying all they could but L&Y took every opportunity to pin them back with long kicks.

In the final 5 minutes L&Y sealed the game from another textbook Coleman take at the lineout, this time Dagenham managed to halt the drive so Thomas decided to break away and barge his way over from five metres. Davey kicked the conversion to leave the final scoreline 21-32.

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